ben oliver

This week sees the release of Detective Comics #948, the first part of "Batwoman Begins," a two-part story that leads into the upcoming Batwoman solo series. That series will be scripted by Marguerite Bennett with art by Steve Epting, so Bennett has joined scripter James Tynion IV as co-plotter on this Detective story, featuring art by Ben Oliver, and Tynion in turn will co-plot Batwoman.

ComicsAlliance sat down with Bennett and Tynion to talk about who Kate Kane is, how she's different from Bruce Wayne, and why it's important to fill the DC Universe with queer characters --- including a new transgender character who will be introduced in this story.

A while back, I wrote about how skeptical I was that a Martian Manhunter solo series could ever really work, and I don't know if I have ever been proven wrong as hard as I have been by the last few months. Somehow, Rob Williams, Eddy Barrows and Ben Oliver have discovered the magic formula that makes that character work, and it involves going way over the top.

Teased for years and finally launched in 2014, The Multiversity is a universe-jumping series of DC Comics one-shots tracking the cosmic monitor Nix Uotan and an assemblage of star-crossed heroes as they attempt to save 52 universes and beyond from a trippy cosmic existential threat that, like much of Morrison’s best work, represents something far more mundane and relatable. Tying back into the very first Multiverse story in DC’s history, the heroes of these universes become aware of this threat by reading about it in comic books… comic books that, it turns out, take place in neighboring universes. Indeed, writer Grant Morrison continues his streak of highly metatextual DC cosmic epics with this eight-issue mega-series (plus one Tolkienesque guidebook).

Described by Morrison as “the ultimate statement of what DC is”, The Multiversity naturally offers the reader much beyond the surface level adventure, and that means annotations. Rather than merely filling out checklists of references, my hope with this feature is to slowly unearth and extrapolate a narrative model for Morrison and his collaborators’ work on The Multiversity; an interconnecting web of themes and cause and effect that works both on literal and symbolic levels.

We’ll be focusing here on the third issue of the maxiseries, The Just, written by Morrison with artwork by Ben Oliver and color assistance from Dan Brown (the excellent colorist, not the literary hack).

For years now, DC Comics fans have been hearing about writer Grant Morrison's The Multiversity -- a universe-jumping series of one-shot stories tied together by an introductory and concluding issue that tracks the cosmic monitor Nix Woton as he tries to save multiple universes from an existential threat. Universes that become aware of this threat by reading about it in comic books... comic books that, it turns out, take place in neighboring universes. We first saw artwork from Frank Quitely's installment all the way back in 2012, but the project has been in the works since even before the advent of DC's line-wide 2011 reboot, the New 52 (a name that has proven confusing in the past, but, we promise, never more so than in this interview).

Now it's finally starting next month, featuring auspicious collaborations with artists including Cameron Stewart, Ben Oliver, Chris Sprouse, Ivan Reis, Frank Quitely, and even more besides, introducing readers to a Vampire Batman, a Nazi Superman, a dinosaur cop, "Sister Miracle," an evil comic book called Ultra Comics, and tons of other ideas inspired by the deep history of DC Comics lore.

We make a regular practice at ComicsAlliance of spotlighting particular artists or specific bodies of work, as well as the special qualities of comic book storytelling, but because cartoonists, illustrators and their fans share countless numbers of great pinups, fan art and other illustrations on sites like Flickr, Tumblr, DeviantArt and seemingly infinite art blogs that we’ve created Best Art Ever (This Week), a weekly depository for just some of the pieces of especially compelling artwork that we come across in our regular travels across the Web. Some of it’s new, some of it’s old, some of it’s created by working professionals, some of it’s created by future stars, some of it’s created by talented fans, awnd some of it’s endearingly silly. All of it is awesome.

You may have missed it as the internet continued to rage about this, but last Friday on its website DC Comics revealed four proposed looks for a new version of Lobo. Designed by Kenneth Rocafort, the distinctly svelte, sinister and maybe even sexy Lobo looks very much like the kind of standard sci-fi character you'd see from Top Cow (where Rocafort made his name), and is a dramatic shift away from the over-the-top '80s biker originally conceived by Keith Giffen and Roger Silfer and visually defined by Simon Bisley. In fitting Lobo fashion, things got ugly, which led to Marguerite Bennett -- who'll be writing the Lobo one-shot -- defending the book and herself before anyone's even had a chance to read it.

When the original He-Man and the Masters of the Universe animated series found its way to Netflix Instant not too long ago, I thought it would make perfect background noise for my work day; some nostalgic entertainment to help pass the time while working on the site. But as an adult, what I discovered in that early 1980s cartoon based on an action figure line was far more distracting and indeed more sophisticated than I ever realized as a little boy. While the animation itself is crude (and famously recyclable), the show expresses a palpable sense of otherworldly adventure and intrigue through its writing but even more so through it's surprisingly awesome art direction. I thought, this medieval-techno world of Eternia and its heroes, villains, magics and prophecies could really be great if someone wanted to really dig into it.

Courtesy of DC Comics, ComicsAlliance brings you an exclusive first look at Ben Oliver's cover for Batwing #3, on sale in November. Featuring interior artwork by Oliver with a script by Jud Winick, the issue continues the adventures of David Zavimbi, the Batman of Africa...

Flashpoint is DC Comics' summer event of 2011 that promises to change the DC Universe unrecognizably until the event's climactic finale, when the DC Universe will instead be left changed somewhat recognizably...

Rogues' Gallery

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